Menu

#LibraryZOMG

The following post is full of gifs in attempt to lighten up the bummer aspects – after all, I’d rather laugh than cry. You have been warned. Proceed at your own risk.Murphy’s Law was in full force after I’d published my #LibraryYES post. I believe that it was the very next day that Julia gave us her two weeks’ notice. Then the following week Brittany did the same. One of the notices was expected, the other was completely out of the blue.

I cried. Openly. At my desk.What can I say? I love my team. I guess that I should be happy that I didn’t mistakenly believe that they’d been killed in a horrible baking accident.

But the other thing causing me tears (hey – I’m not completely selfless) was realizing how brutal our summer would be. We were already working with a skeleton crew, and this meant hiring and training people during summer programming. I was already working alone part of many days, and with my fibromyalgia I was scared of having a flare when I was on my own.Seriously, I had such a bad flare on the day that I was to start training our new Young Adult Librarian that when he arrived, he found me on the ground behind the Director’s desk – fetal, crying, and waiting for Bruce to come pick me up. We laugh about it now, but I was so embarrassed and frustrated that my body gave out when I was SO excited to welcome him to our team. HUGE shout-out to the rest of our team who made him feel welcomed and showed him the ropes in my place!

There were other super icky work issues that came up during this time. One that took until today to resolve. Needless to say, these things caused me both physical and emotional pain.

Did I mention that Bruce and I moved during this time? Into a rental house – neither of us ever having lived in a house since we’d become adults? A house that we’ve been partially renovating and fully painting? And where we’ve been rediscovering the joys of yard work?
Yeah.

So, I stepped back from my online presence. I wasn’t enjoying work as much (it was a daily struggle), and I didn’t have the energy or enthusiasm for anything library-related. Even my own #LibraryYES idea. How could I loudly proclaim YES when everything work-related seemed like a NO?The answer: I couldn’t. At least my mortal enemy hadn’t cut off my hand and then revealed himself to be my father while I dangled precariously on some sort of ledge-thing. Uh, spoiler alert?

I’ve had rough times before, but nothing super-major since starting up this-here blog. Heck, I originally started this blog after my horrible mono experience when I wasn’t finding a creative outlet at work (things changed, obviously – and thankfully). And I’m guilty of making what I do look as fabulous as possible online. After all, it’s not that fun to read about someone else’s struggles (unless you’re like “schadenfreude – awww yisssss!”).
It’s even lesser-fun to admit struggles and fails. But after being part of an email discussion between a group of amazing library ladies ::waves hi to Amy, Sophie, Laura, and Erin::, we came to the conclusion that we all have the tendency to want to glaze over, ignore, or trivialize all of the hard work and even failures that occur more often than not in our work. (Now that the summer craziness is behind, I truly hope that we can return to our brainstorming and eventually share our ideas with the world – I have high hopes for where we’re heading).

Yeah, I made a pair of giant fuzzy dice. Did I share that I managed to burn my fingers a bajillion times, or glue one part of a die onto the carpet? Nope. I just left it out.

Did I mention that I took a full eight hours to create some artwork used on an event flyer? Nope, I post the work and don’t even comment on how hard I worked on it. FYI: if it’s artsy-fartsy, then it probably took me more time than you’d imagine, or that I’d want to admit.

My Halloween spiders that I mentioned having a “small crafting meltdown” over? I was ugly-crying at my desk because it wasn’t working like I’d wanted it to (it was after close and no other staff members were around – thank goodness).I definitely glossed over this and many other things.

Does this make me a terrible person? Nope.

Does this make my blog full of LIES?! Nope.

But I’m determined that going forward I’ll be even more honest about the struggling aspect of things. I do not want to be the cause of new librarians questioning their abilities because I make it look easy. Generally, things aren’t easy. But many of us persevere, improvise, and bullheadedly continue on and get it done and/or sweep it under the hot glue marred carpet. Then some of us frame the writing and pictures just riiiight to make it look like a gorgeous breeze.

::snort::

So there you have it: why the lack of posts here, there, and everywhere online, and sort of my vision statement going forward on this here blog.

I always appreciate your honesty. And figure when posting frequency goes down great battles are being fought. We all have very tough – and very good – times. Hold onto those positives during the battle times. It makes it easier. You are VERY valued by many ppl. Hang in there!

I hope you know how much your work is appreciated and used beyond the physical building you are in – the artwork you have shared freely made many of our summer lives sooo much more attractive and appealing. Love Hafuboti and I hope things settle down for you – feel better and feel the library love!

You have been my saving grace since I started as juvenile librarian a year ago, with no experience and absolutely no creative genes in my body. The absolute highlight of my year was meeting you in person and knowing how lucky my grandchildren are to have a library in their town with you in it!!!!!! Personally, I’m thrilled to know that projects take a long amount of time and never turn out perfectly, that bosses can be very unappreciative of efforts, and that there are days when you just want to stand in a corner and beat your head against the wall. If I didn’t know that other librarians experienced these things, I’d think there was something wrong with me and I was in the wrong profession. And Jessi is right, the adorable superhero kids that you and Bryce created adorned a huge bulletin board in our library and went home on coloring pages with the kids. I know they were used in a bunch of libraries this summer. My hats off to you dear friend, and please know how loved and admired you are!